, who was pouring out wine for his
royal highness, on hearing the jingling of spurs in the next chamber,
turned round like a child, without perceiving that he was continuing to
pour out, not into the glass, but upon the tablecloth.

Madame, who was not so preoccupied as her glorious spouse was, remarked
this distraction of the page.

"Well?" exclaimed she.

"Well!" repeated Monsieur; "what is going on then?"

M. de Saint-Remy, who had just introduced his head through the doorway,
took advantage of the moment.

"Why am I to be disturbed?" said Gaston, helping himself to a thick
slice of one of the largest salmon that had ever ascended the Loire to
be captured between Paimboeuf and Saint-Nazaire.

"There is a messenger from Paris. Oh! but after monseigneur has
breakfasted will do; there is plenty of time."

"From Paris!" cried the prince, letting his fork fall. "A messenger from
Paris, do you say? And on whose part does this messenger come?"

"On the part of M. le Prince," said the _maitre d'hotel_ promptly.

Every one knows that the Prince de Conde was so called.

"A messenger from M. le Prince!" said Gaston, with an inquietude that
escaped none of the assistants, and consequently redoubled the general
curiosity.

Monsieur, perhaps, fancied himself brought back again to the happy times
when the opening of a door gave him an emotion, in which every letter
might contain a state secret,--in which every message was connected with
a dark and complicated intrigue. Perhaps, likewise, that great name
of M. le Prince expanded itself, beneath the roofs of Blois, to the
proportions of a phantom.

Monsieur pushed away his plate.

"Shall I tell the envoy to wait?" asked M. de Saint-Remy.

A glance from Madame emboldened Gaston, who replied: "No, no! let him
come in at once, on the contrary. _A propos_, who is he?"

"A gentleman of this country, M. le Vicomte de Bragelonne."

"Ah, very well! Introduce him, Saint-Remy--introduce him."

And when he had let fall these words, with his accustomed gravity,
Monsieur turned his eyes, in a certain manner, upon the people of his
suite, so that all, pages, officers, and equerries, quitted the service,
knives and goblets, and made towards the second chamber door a retreat
as rapid as it was disorderly.

This little army had dispersed in two files when Raoul de Bragelonne,
preceded by M. de Saint-Remy, entered the refectory.

The short interval of solitude which this retreat